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Saudi Women Bloggers Speak Out
by monique t
News / June 22, 2006
Poynter Online published an article yesterday, Saudi Women Bloggers Push Limits by Amy Gahran, about Saudi female bloggers who are expressing political and social opinions on blogs. In Canada, that would be nothing extraordinary, but in many parts of the world this type of public free speech is frowned upon, censored or illegal.
Gahran points out the value of blogs to free speech using the example of a citizen-journalistic blog by Saudi female "Ruba": "It exposes people to a perspective they probably wouldn't encounter through media, or in open conversation. More importantly, it gives voice to a woman--a young woman--from a society where female voices are hushed or actively suppressed."
The article also links to GlobalVoicesOnline.org, a non-profit citizen' media project whose editors work to find and aggregate and track the conversation of "bridge bloggers", people who are talking about their country or region to a global audience.
We Are Iran by Nasrin Alavi, published by Raincoast, also reflects the importance of blogs to citizens of Iran and the risks they take by blogging.
"The worst that could happen to a blogger in the West is that they might be looked upon as self-absorbed 'cyber-geeks' or 'anoraks', but in Iran--a country that Reporters san Frontieres called 'the biggest prison for journalists in the Middle East'--honest self-expression carries a heavy price. In the last six years as many as 100 print publications, including 41 daily newspapers, have been closed by Iran's hardline judiciary ... In April 2003 Iran became the first government to take direct action against bloggers."
For more on We Are Iran, visit www.raincoast.com/weareiran/
